He should have been made captain back then yes, but again doesnt change the fact that it was a poor decision.

So you think he should've been made captain even though around that time you were arguing that he was barely good enough to be in the side?

Flintoff was picked ahead of him because he was more established, and once that was done the only way Strauss could captain was when Flintoff was injured.

again point being? England were never going to win with Flintoff as captain because he simply wasnt good enough, and he was quite likely to break down given that he just got back from injury. Nobody in England is going to say that Freddie lacks cricketing intelligence but its pretty obvious when you watch him bat or when hes captaining on the field that he clearly does so. Again DFs fault

What, it's his fault that Flintoff isn't a good captain? Or that he was picked as captain? Assuming the latter, no, not exclusively his fault (maybe not even his fault at all - some people have claimed that Flintoff was not his preferred choice).

Nicely done contradicting yourself. Now you yourself claim that it might well have been 4-0 instead of 5-0. Anyhow im fairly certain that the scorecards would have been a lot closer if we had a better captain, and the 4-0 or 5-0 would have hurt a lot less.
I have no doubt that the captaincy was only one factor in the loss, there were several others which i have mentioned before, but again you digress how does that prove the point that DF made poor selection and other decisions?

I said might just, not might well. Big difference.

The point I'm making is that choosing the captaincy for this tour could never have been described as a poor decision because there was no obvious candidate - the selectors (and there are more than 1) had to take a punt whoever they chose (they could've chosen Alastair Cook and it'd have been the same), and for that reason I don't see that they deserve any real criticism for who they gave the captaincy to.

And strauss had done his job admirably by leading his side to a 3-0 victory against pakistan as well as contributing positively with the bat. Flintoff's shortcomings had already been seen in the home series against SL and he even managed to injure himself by bowling himself like an old shoe.

I said it a million times then - dropped catches were no shortcoming of Flintoff. You can bowl whoever you want, it won't make an iota of difference if you put down as many catches as England did that game.

I do not see that Strauss' captaincy was massively better against Pakistan than Flintoff's was against Sri Lanka - England just played far better.

You are once again missing the whole point. Since when do you care about the masses of cricket fans? Ive provided enough reasons, most of which you havent found any answers to, to prove to you why it was a bad decision to have flintoff as captain. And i think its common sense really.
Even when ponting made those poor decisions in 2005 i backed him as a captain and said that he has been a decent one and anyone who watched him could see that. In flintoffs case there is nothing to back him with. Hes simply been miserable from day one. Despite appearing to be physically and emotionally drained by his teams performance he didnt relinquish the captaincy during the series which IMO he should have done. I dont rate Strauss very highly as captain but he wouldnt make those rather dull errors that flintoff committed and it might well have helped his game and Flintoffs as well. Really for mine Vaughan and Tresothick are far better tacticians than either of the 2.

You've provided reasons why Strauss might - and only might - have done a better captaincy job than Flintoff. You've provided no reasons as to how that might have changed the scoreline, and you certainly haven't provided reasons why appointing Flintoff as captain was a mistake, because there cannot be any. As I said, whoever the selectors picked as captain they were taking a gamble, and whatever happened the captain was likely to be made to look foolish, because all captains make mistakes and all mistakes get magnified when the team you're captain of gets beaten badly. And England getting beaten badly in this series was pretty close to inevitable.

As for why do I care about the masses of cricket fans? Because they're the ones making the comments like the "Vaughan outwitted Ponting at every turn" nonsense that eminated time and again from last summer. And they're the ones who turn on the selectors for no good reason when they make a marginal line-call and a very bad loss follows.

As for giving-up the captaincy mid-series when you've been appointed on a short-term basis - for me that's the ultimate admittance that you haven't been good enough and one I don't expect any cricketer to possess the humility to countenance.

Freddie lifted England back into contention when we all thought the required run rate was beyond them, but then stopped. His average means little, he was unproductive when the game was in the balance. The fact that Lewis was stuck there frittering away England's chances was down to Freddie being so determined to hold his wicket when it no longer mattered. You had three wickets in hand.

Those 3 wickets were Lewis, Anderson and Panesar.

Freddie's wicket most definitely mattered with those 3 at the other end.

marc71178 - President and founding member of AAAS - we don't only appreciate when he does well, but also when he's not quite so good!

I assure you, I did check and in those last-innings collapses just 1 wicket fell to a sweep. As I said - I don't deny that there are times when English batsmen have been preoccuppied with the sweep and I don't think DF is blameless on that front. But rare indeed is the cricketer without falt.

well anyways if there werent many in that innings, there have been plenty over the last 2 years from poor sweep shots and many that should have fallen given how poorly they are often played. When someone says that the only way anyone should play a spinner is by sweeping, its quite clear that hes talking ****

Originally Posted by Richard

Butcher and Thorpe were poor, but they had been for a time - who else dropped many?

Why do they not matter? Improving fielding standards is a part of coaching. If poor fielders remain poor then it clearly defeats the point of coaching itself. As such even someone like Freddie has gone backwards in recent times.

Originally Posted by Richard

It's been very poor often, but not invariably.

Why is the coach neccessarily responsible for it? I say again - do you really think he's not intelligent enough to realise that catching as many catches as possible is about the most important thing in cricket?

Its not just about realising there is a problem, its also a case of coaching methods. Flintoff for example has been bowling no balls for donkey's years and youd think coaches would actually work with him so that he can solve the problems in the nets. Similarly plenty of coaches have diverse fielding drills, australia often employ baseball coaches, but whatever it is, its quite clear that england havent been focussing on that aspect. Teams like NZ have maintained relatively good fielding standards for ages now, so it clearly depends on coaches rather than the players themselves.

Tendulkar = the most overated player EVER!!
Beckham = the most overated footballer EVER!!
Vassell = the biggest disgrace since rikki clarke!!

So New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, West Indies, Pakistan and Sri Lanka didn't have quality line-ups? No, they certainly did, and Caddick and Gough were simply good enough to use the conditions to make them look wholly ordinary, often.

SA? Both Gough and Caddick were largely very ordinary against SA in the 99/00 series and any fool could see it. Caddick had one stand out performance, the 7/46 with the ball swinging around corners. Gough didnt even manage anything of the sort, and his 5/70 was a complete fluke filled with poor strokes and very poor bowling.
By and large Gough was good, but not great(if he was he would have been able to take wickets against australia more often than he did), while Caddick was clearly conditions reliant and it was quite obvious when he came on flat wickets that he was very ordinary. Thats certainly not 'the best you can wish for IMO', and im fairly certain everyone would take Mcgrath/gillespie, Wasim/ Waqar, Ambrose/Walsh etc everyday of the week.

Originally Posted by Richard

Gough and Caddick were damn superb in that period, and they were pretty rubbish in The Ashes. Yes, they were fully fit, but they damn sure weren't in form. Only a fool would claim that they didn't bowl far, far worse than they had been for the previous 2 years. And in Caddick's case, he never recaptured that consistency, and more reverted to his 1993-1998 case.

they werent rubbish, they simply werent good enough against what was a very good lineup with the Waughs, Martyn, Gilchrist and Ponting.

So you think he should've been made captain even though around that time you were arguing that he was barely good enough to be in the side?

He never came close to being dropped from the England side though, it certainly wasnt even going through their minds. At the end of the day you choose from your options. No one expected Strauss to take the responsibility of captaincy as well as he did and play in the manner which he did, but after he did it should have been an easy choice to decide between the 2.

Originally Posted by Richard

Flintoff was picked ahead of him because he was more established, and once that was done the only way Strauss could captain was when Flintoff was injured.

Err much like Strauss was a stand in captain, Flintoff was too. Clearly neither captain was settled in stone. If you get injured and someone performs better than you did then you get replaced, we've seen plenty of players replace players that get injured, it happened with butcher and its not much difference with the captaincy.when someone is a injury hazard it makes that case even more favorable.

Originally Posted by Richard

I said might just, not might well. Big difference.

The point I'm making is that choosing the captaincy for this tour could never have been described as a poor decision because there was no obvious candidate - the selectors (and there are more than 1) had to take a punt whoever they chose (they could've chosen Alastair Cook and it'd have been the same), and for that reason I don't see that they deserve any real criticism for who they gave the captaincy to.

There was an obvious candidate in Strauss.

Originally Posted by Richard

I said it a million times then - dropped catches were no shortcoming of Flintoff. You can bowl whoever you want, it won't make an iota of difference if you put down as many catches as England did that game.

Err bowling himself for 51 overs in the final inning(which incidentally was more than everyone else in the side)? especially when he had panesar at his disposal on the last day. It was a clear absence of logic

Originally Posted by Richard

You've provided reasons why Strauss might - and only might - have done a better captaincy job than Flintoff. You've provided no reasons as to how that might have changed the scoreline, and you certainly haven't provided reasons why appointing Flintoff as captain was a mistake, because there cannot be any. As I said, whoever the selectors picked as captain they were taking a gamble, and whatever happened the captain was likely to be made to look foolish, because all captains make mistakes and all mistakes get magnified when the team you're captain of gets beaten badly. And England getting beaten badly in this series was pretty close to inevitable.

As said earlier, there are mistakes and there are things which are out of this world stupid. Flintoff was about as wise as a ******** 2nd grader in that series. all captains make mistakes, but most make some good decisions as well, some like flintoff instead seem to try and enlarge their mistakes as far as possible.

Originally Posted by Richard

As for why do I care about the masses of cricket fans? Because they're the ones making the comments like the "Vaughan outwitted Ponting at every turn" nonsense that eminated time and again from last summer. And they're the ones who turn on the selectors for no good reason when they make a marginal line-call and a very bad loss follows.

except that to any ordinary person vaughan did outwit ponting last summer and vaughan is quit clearly a superior captain that ponting and any aussie would admit it.

Originally Posted by Richard

As for giving-up the captaincy mid-series when you've been appointed on a short-term basis - for me that's the ultimate admittance that you haven't been good enough and one I don't expect any cricketer to possess the humility to countenance.

Im sorry what? What on earth is wrong with being man enough to admit that you are not good enough at a certain skill? Flintoff is a damn fine player, a brilliant bowler, a good captain and usually an excellent fielder and for him to think of himself as a failure because he couldnt excel as captain would be downright stupid. Ian Botham had no problems relinquishing the captaincy in 81 so it certainly disproves your last sentence completely. you could see for yourself that Flintoff was clearly sullen and completely out of it during that series as a result of the burden of captaincy(Certainly compared to the last ashes) and it was quite depressing just to have to watch him reduced to such a pitiable state. Flintoff had more than enough on his plate to worry about, his own form tailed and really he should have been focussing on the more important aspects of his own game rather than worrying about his 'best mate' steve harmison and the rest

well anyways if there werent many in that innings, there have been plenty over the last 2 years from poor sweep shots and many that should have fallen given how poorly they are often played. When someone says that the only way anyone should play a spinner is by sweeping, its quite clear that hes talking ****

Has he seriously said "the only way to play a spinner is by sweeping"?

Why do they not matter? Improving fielding standards is a part of coaching. If poor fielders remain poor then it clearly defeats the point of coaching itself.

No coach could ever change the post-2001 Butcher and the post-2003 Thorpe into anything less than hopeless catchers.

As such even someone like Freddie has gone backwards in recent times.

Has he?

Its not just about realising there is a problem, its also a case of coaching methods. Flintoff for example has been bowling no balls for donkey's years and youd think coaches would actually work with him so that he can solve the problems in the nets. Similarly plenty of coaches have diverse fielding drills, australia often employ baseball coaches, but whatever it is, its quite clear that england havent been focussing on that aspect. Teams like NZ have maintained relatively good fielding standards for ages now, so it clearly depends on coaches rather than the players themselves.

England have employed the same baseball coach, and Australia employed him several times between 2002 and 2005, their fielding was still mostly poor in that time.

Flintoff is certainly not the only one who's been bowling far too many no-balls for donkey's years, far more bowlers than not do, even the strict disciplinarians like Pollock and Ambrose. No-balls are just a problem that are not taken anywhere near seriously enough by the vast majority of people. Even some spinners bowl no-balls, when there's never, ever an excuse for someone with a 4 or 5 pace run-up to ever bowl a single no-ball in his career.

SA? Both Gough and Caddick were largely very ordinary against SA in the 99/00 series and any fool could see it. Caddick had one stand out performance, the 7/46 with the ball swinging around corners. Gough didnt even manage anything of the sort, and his 5/70 was a complete fluke filled with poor strokes and very poor bowling.
By and large Gough was good, but not great(if he was he would have been able to take wickets against australia more often than he did), while Caddick was clearly conditions reliant and it was quite obvious when he came on flat wickets that he was very ordinary. Thats certainly not 'the best you can wish for IMO', and im fairly certain everyone would take Mcgrath/gillespie, Wasim/ Waqar, Ambrose/Walsh etc everyday of the week.

What about the Wasim\Waqar of 2001\02? The McGrath\Gillespie of 2005? The Ambrose\Walsh of 1988?

The fact of the matter is, Gough and Caddick for that time were excellent, even if Caddick remained conditions-reliant to take wickets and Gough still had the odd poor spell. It was only a brief spell and doesn't make them better than many other partnerships because they were only opening together for a couple of years. But it doesn't change the fact that they were both superb for most of that time.

they werent rubbish, they simply werent good enough against what was a very good lineup with the Waughs, Martyn, Gilchrist and Ponting.

They weren't rubbish, they just weren't good enough? O...K... same thing in my mind.
Either way, that doesn't change how they'd bowled in the previous 18-24 months.

He never came close to being dropped from the England side though, it certainly wasnt even going through their minds. At the end of the day you choose from your options. No one expected Strauss to take the responsibility of captaincy as well as he did and play in the manner which he did, but after he did it should have been an easy choice to decide between the 2.

Not if the seeming better candidate was the 2nd appointment and only appointed ITFP due to injury.

Err much like Strauss was a stand in captain, Flintoff was too. Clearly neither captain was settled in stone. If you get injured and someone performs better than you did then you get replaced, we've seen plenty of players replace players that get injured, it happened with butcher and its not much difference with the captaincy.when someone is a injury hazard it makes that case even more favorable.

A clear feudal order had been established, and that would've been broken by giving Strauss the captaincy.

There was an obvious candidate in Strauss.

Obvious to you. There were many good judges (in other scenarios) making the case for Flintoff. It was not a straightforward choice and once it went wrong (which was inevitable) there was always going to be criticism.

Err bowling himself for 51 overs in the final inning(which incidentally was more than everyone else in the side)? especially when he had panesar at his disposal on the last day. It was a clear absence of logic

You've completely ignored my point. Had he bowled Panesar the game would still have been drawn because that amount of catches going down is always going to cost a victory whoever bowls.

Had the catches been taken there'd have been no criticism aimed his way for bowling himself lots. Indeed, it might've been praise instead.

As said earlier, there are mistakes and there are things which are out of this world stupid. Flintoff was about as wise as a ******** 2nd grader in that series. all captains make mistakes, but most make some good decisions as well, some like flintoff instead seem to try and enlarge their mistakes as far as possible.

So you reckon Strauss wouldn't have made any mistakes and\or wouldn't have been criticised for poor captaincy had he captained us to that 5-0 loss.

except that to any ordinary person vaughan did outwit ponting last summer and vaughan is quit clearly a superior captain that ponting and any aussie would admit it.

He's quite clearly a better captain but he didn't "outwit" him because there is no stage in cricket where captains' captaincy skills go head-to-head. Nor did Ponting captain anywhere near as poorly in England as most Brits claimed.

Im sorry what? What on earth is wrong with being man enough to admit that you are not good enough at a certain skill? Flintoff is a damn fine player, a brilliant bowler, a good captain and usually an excellent fielder and for him to think of himself as a failure because he couldnt excel as captain would be downright stupid. Ian Botham had no problems relinquishing the captaincy in 81 so it certainly disproves your last sentence completely. you could see for yourself that Flintoff was clearly sullen and completely out of it during that series as a result of the burden of captaincy(Certainly compared to the last ashes) and it was quite depressing just to have to watch him reduced to such a pitiable state. Flintoff had more than enough on his plate to worry about, his own form tailed and really he should have been focussing on the more important aspects of his own game rather than worrying about his 'best mate' steve harmison and the rest

Botham relinquished the captaincy because he would've been pushed had he not. And in any case, it has nothing to do with that because it was a home series. Many captains have resigned in the middle of a home series. Only Mike Denness has ever done so in an away one, and even that was just stepping-down for 1 Test.

How many times did Flintoff state, before and after being given the captaincy, that being England captain was to him the ultimate honour? What would that then say about and to him were he to relinquish it in the middle of a tour?

If he's man enough to admit that he can't do everything at the start of next summer and that he doesn't ever want the captaincy again, well, good for him, but the middle of a tour is no time for such a thing as far as I'm concerned.

Has he seriously said "the only way to play a spinner is by sweeping"?

IIRC he said something along the lines of players that play with a straight bat make themselves vulnerable to the turning ball(and he provided detailed reasoning for it), that the best players of spin in the world like Hayden, Thorpe and Lara were all very good players of the horizontal bat stroke and that when you sweep you completely take lbw out of the equation and that it was therefore risk free. Therefore it couldnt be any more obvious what case he was making and that has been influencing some of the England players to do the same.

Originally Posted by Richard

No coach could ever change the post-2001 Butcher and the post-2003 Thorpe into anything less than hopeless catchers.

A good coach would. Nor is it particularly surprising that their standard of fielding went down during Duncans reign.

Originally Posted by Richard

Has he?

You havent noticed? His fielding used to be considered the best in the England side and he had pulled off some absolute blinders. Recently he's dropped some absolute dolly's.

Originally Posted by Richard

England have employed the same baseball coach, and Australia employed him several times between 2002 and 2005, their fielding was still mostly poor in that time.

From what i remember they employed a baseball coach for a 4 week period once before the series of SA. Did they employ anyone for a consistent period?

Originally Posted by Richard

Flintoff is certainly not the only one who's been bowling far too many no-balls for donkey's years, far more bowlers than not do, even the strict disciplinarians like Pollock and Ambrose. No-balls are just a problem that are not taken anywhere near seriously enough by the vast majority of people. Even some spinners bowl no-balls, when there's never, ever an excuse for someone with a 4 or 5 pace run-up to ever bowl a single no-ball in his career.

Ive seen Shoaib Malik bowl plenty and it is clearly unacceptable. IMO bowling coaches really need to work on that. Duncan fletcher maybe the batting coach but its certainly a big issue that he should be bringing up to his players.

What about the Wasim\Waqar of 2001\02? The McGrath\Gillespie of 2005? The Ambrose\Walsh of 1988?

The fact of the matter is, Gough and Caddick for that time were excellent, even if Caddick remained conditions-reliant to take wickets and Gough still had the odd poor spell. It was only a brief spell and doesn't make them better than many other partnerships because they were only opening together for a couple of years. But it doesn't change the fact that they were both superb for most of that time..

they were superb only on wickets that suited them. caddick was always mediocre when it cam to bowling in the subcontinent or in Australia. Both failed miserably on the flatter wickets of SA and both didnt succeed against Australia. Ok so Gough could be very good on his day anywhere,but inconsistency was the hallmark of his career

Originally Posted by Richard

They weren't rubbish, they just weren't good enough? O...K... same thing in my mind.
Either way, that doesn't change how they'd bowled in the previous 18-24 months.

how on earth is being rubbish and not being good enough to bowl out an all time great batting lineup the same thing?
Like i said earlier, Gough was very good in said period, caddick was good on pitches that suited him and poor otherwise. thats certainly not the 'best bowling combination' you could ever wish for. nor is their failing against the 2 best sides in the world at the time either.

Not if the seeming better candidate was the 2nd appointment and only appointed ITFP due to injury..

without considering of course that the number 1 appointment was also appointed due to injury. Vaughan was still the man in possession, it had been announced that he would be captain on return.

Originally Posted by Richard

A clear feudal order had been established, and that would've been broken by giving Strauss the captaincy.

And the class-feudal order is clearly the most important thing rather than competence, injury concerns, performances or experience. Like i said earlier, Englands policy is basically ' we are not going to do anything that upsets Flintoff because he is a cricketing God'. everyone knew that Strauss was the better captain, even you deep down know that in terms of cricketing logic, Strauss was the logical choice.

Originally Posted by Richard

Obvious to you. There were many good judges (in other scenarios) making the case for Flintoff. It was not a straightforward choice and once it went wrong (which was inevitable) there was always going to be criticism.

and their reasoning behind the decision was equally stupid. Reasons going around were that 'hes our best player', 'the Aussies respect him' and that ' he would get the best out of his best mate'. How does any of that make him a good captain?

Originally Posted by Richard

You've completely ignored my point. Had he bowled Panesar the game would still have been drawn because that amount of catches going down is always going to cost a victory whoever bowls.

Had the catches been taken there'd have been no criticism aimed his way for bowling himself lots. Indeed, it might've been praise instead.

Err your point is irrelevant. The result was not what im questioning(Although he made enough stupid field placings on his own to have cost England the game anyways). My diatribe against him is what on earth he was doing bowling 58 overs in an inning and consequently getting himself injured at the end of the series? The logical option was to let Panesar bowl especially considering that a) it was a 5th day wicket, b) Panesar dismissed 2 out of the top 3 batsman and consequently had the best figures of the whole inning. I mean even if you think Flintoff should have bowled as many overs as he did in a 5 man attack, what on earth were plunkett and Mahmood doing bowling more overs than Panesar?

Originally Posted by Richard

So you reckon Strauss wouldn't have made any mistakes and\or wouldn't have been criticised for poor captaincy had he captained us to that 5-0 loss..

No even mike brearly made mistakes, no one is inerrable. However Strauss would not have made those ******** mistakes that Flintoff made and that is pretty obvious. Things like having the field back to Symonds when he came in at the MCG.

Originally Posted by Richard

Botham relinquished the captaincy because he would've been pushed had he not. And in any case, it has nothing to do with that because it was a home series. Many captains have resigned in the middle of a home series. Only Mike Denness has ever done so in an away one, and even that was just stepping-down for 1 Test.

So resigning in a home series is not as humiliating as resigning in an away series then? The selectors then were probably just as enamored with Botham as they are with Flintoff right now, so i doubt they would have pushed him. It was the sensible and logical thing to do when he undergoing a very traumatic experience as captain. Even in the VB series, when he could have quite easily not accepted the captaincy, he once again took up the responsibility. You sometimes have to wonder whether there is anything going on inside his head. Its really a case of the England selectors not being ruthless enough to dent the confidence of their best player(and ironically in doing so have managed to have accomplished that anyways) and a case of a captain not being able to swallow his pride and let a better tactician take over the responsibility

How many times did Flintoff state, before and after being given the captaincy, that being England captain was to him the ultimate honour? What would that then say about and to him were he to relinquish it in the middle of a tour?

If he's man enough to admit that he can't do everything at the start of next summer and that he doesn't ever want the captaincy again, well, good for him, but the middle of a tour is no time for such a thing as far as I'm concerned.[/QUOTE]

IIRC he said something along the lines of players that play with a straight bat make themselves vulnerable to the turning ball(and he provided detailed reasoning for it), that the best players of spin in the world like Hayden, Thorpe and Lara were all very good players of the horizontal bat stroke and that when you sweep you completely take lbw out of the equation and that it was therefore risk free. Therefore it couldnt be any more obvious what case he was making and that has been influencing some of the England players to do the same.

It's been obvious for some time that he's been persuading some batsmen to play the sweep - I have to say I'm surprised he's as keen on it as that, though.

IMO it's simple - if the ball's a good length to sweep, you sweep it. If it's not, you don't.

A good coach would. Nor is it particularly surprising that their standard of fielding went down during Duncans reign.

How can a good coach turn two with hopeless hands into two with decent hands?

Butcher was never that good anyway, I don't really think you can blame Duncan for it becoming even worse. Thorpe was brilliant for ages and only became poor after his 2003 comeback, by which time his back was hindering him. Unless you're suggesting he has some miracle cure for back problems (or Thorpe, averaging about 70 with the bat, should be dropped for his poor fielding) I don't see how he can be blamed there, either.

You havent noticed? His fielding used to be considered the best in the England side and he had pulled off some absolute blinders. Recently he's dropped some absolute dolly's.

Obviously he used to be considered the best in England, but I can't recall too many dollies he's dropped of late.

Remind me?

From what i remember they employed a baseball coach for a 4 week period once before the series of SA. Did they employ anyone for a consistent period?

They've employed the same bloke - Mike Young - on many occasions. I don't know the particulars, all I've heard is he wasn't used directly before Ashes 2005 - suggesting he'd been used pretty often before that. Certainly his first foray into cricket was 2002. And England have also used him. Evidently, though, not enough.

they were superb only on wickets that suited them. caddick was always mediocre when it cam to bowling in the subcontinent or in Australia. Both failed miserably on the flatter wickets of SA and both didnt succeed against Australia. Ok so Gough could be very good on his day anywhere,but inconsistency was the hallmark of his career

Not in the year between 2000 and 2001 it wasn't. He bowled as well then as anyone of his height ever has. And he had his moments elsewhere, too. Of course, he also had plenty of injuries.

Caddick didn't have that many unfriendly wickets between 1999 and May 2001, so it wasn't much of a problem. Even when he did, he usually bowled economically, which is all you can ask for when the pitch doesn't suit you and you're taking wickets when it does.

how on earth is being rubbish and not being good enough to bowl out an all time great batting lineup the same thing?

Being rubbish and not being good enough are pretty much the same thing. Adding the bit about "to bowl out an all time great batting lineup" makes a bit of a difference.

Like i said earlier, Gough was very good in said period, caddick was good on pitches that suited him and poor otherwise. thats certainly not the 'best bowling combination' you could ever wish for. nor is their failing against the 2 best sides in the world at the time either.

Obviously, but neither happened during that period I was referring to.

without considering of course that the number 1 appointment was also appointed due to injury. Vaughan was still the man in possession, it had been announced that he would be captain on return.

Where did you get the idea I didn't consider that? Had Vaughan been fit, he'd obviously have taken the captaincy. Yet had Flintoff not got injured in 2006, Strauss would never have got it at all. And therefore it would change an established pecking-order to the appoint Strauss when Flintoff was fit.

And the class-feudal order is clearly the most important thing rather than competence, injury concerns, performances or experience. Like i said earlier, Englands policy is basically ' we are not going to do anything that upsets Flintoff because he is a cricketing God'. everyone knew that Strauss was the better captain, even you deep down know that in terms of cricketing logic, Strauss was the logical choice.

I don't. He might be the better captain, and we might be able to tell that now, but I maintain that there was no obvious choice as captain for that tour once Vaughan became unavailable.

and their reasoning behind the decision was equally stupid. Reasons going around were that 'hes our best player', 'the Aussies respect him' and that ' he would get the best out of his best mate'. How does any of that make him a good captain?

The Aussies respecting him is fair enough IMO.

The reasoning was simple IMO - he was the first in line, and would've been an automatic choice had he not been injured.

Err your point is irrelevant. The result was not what im questioning(Although he made enough stupid field placings on his own to have cost England the game anyways). My diatribe against him is what on earth he was doing bowling 58 overs in an inning and consequently getting himself injured at the end of the series? The logical option was to let Panesar bowl especially considering that a) it was a 5th day wicket, b) Panesar dismissed 2 out of the top 3 batsman and consequently had the best figures of the whole inning. I mean even if you think Flintoff should have bowled as many overs as he did in a 5 man attack, what on earth were plunkett and Mahmood doing bowling more overs than Panesar?

It was poor, did I say it wasn't? I said that it wouldn't matter who bowled, that game would've been drawn regardless because catches go down whoever bowls.

No even mike brearly made mistakes, no one is inerrable. However Strauss would not have made those ******** mistakes that Flintoff made and that is pretty obvious. Things like having the field back to Symonds when he came in at the MCG.

That wasn't what I was saying - what I was saying is that your mistakes - however poor, however minor - are criticised when the team you're captaining goes down 5-0.

So resigning in a home series is not as humiliating as resigning in an away series then?

No, of course it's not. Captaincy on a tour is far more of a responsibility than captaincy at home is. How many captains have resigned in the middle of an away Test series? Virtually none. How many have resigned in the middle of a home series? Plenty. Hussain and Gooch, two of the last 3 to resign, both did, and Atherton would've done had Graveney not talked him out of it.

The selectors then were probably just as enamored with Botham as they are with Flintoff right now, so i doubt they would have pushed him. It was the sensible and logical thing to do when he undergoing a very traumatic experience as captain.

Everyone knows he was on the verge of being removed as captain when he resigned, it's in just about every book written about the series. Alec Bedser isn't as sympathetic a man as David Graveney.

Even in the VB series, when he could have quite easily not accepted the captaincy, he once again took up the responsibility. You sometimes have to wonder whether there is anything going on inside his head. Its really a case of the England selectors not being ruthless enough to dent the confidence of their best player(and ironically in doing so have managed to have accomplished that anyways) and a case of a captain not being able to swallow his pride and let a better tactician take over the responsibility